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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Sanguinary v. Grey Knights

I got a game in yesterday while the wife and kid were napping. I got to play a Grey Knight player via Vassal. My opponent was trying to get in a 2,500pt. 'ardboyz prep game but was kind enough to reduce his army down to play me at 2,000pt.

We played capture and control with spearhead deployment. I won the roll to go first and my opponent failed to sieze. Below are pictures from the game.

You can see that I deployed rather aggressively to get to grips with my opponent. The middle piece of terrain blocked line of sight and helped to provide me with some defense against initial shooting. I think my opponent made a big mistake by creating a parking lot of fairly weak units for me to pick on as it advanced. You can see my scouts occupying the upper left building to shoot at the opponent's flanks. Dante and a priest joined my assault squad for deepstrike. My landspeeders reserved for deepstrike as well.

In turn 1 I moved up to the central terrain with the libby peaking out to try for a blood lance shot. Everything else prepared to shoot. My libby rolled snake eyes to wound himself before lancing and immobilizing the second rhino from the left. All my other combined shooting shook the chimera and blew up the left rhino with the resulting explosion killing all three of it's occupants.

In response my opponent threw every shot he could at my devestator squads killing all but 1 missile launcher from both. The sanguinary priest also survived. His upper interceptor squad was also able to cast warpquake. His other interceptor squad lost its psycannon due to a dangerous terrain test.

Turn 2 saw me make a boneheaded mistake. One speeder came on, but scatter off the board and mishapped back into reserve. I then got Dante and crew in and forgot that warpquake was up. They mishapped as well but luckily also went back into reserve. My SG squads move forward aggressively again. My libby conjured another lance but it did nothing. The rest of the squad's shooting wrecked the chimera. Other shooting saw the immobilized rhino stunned.

My opponent's turn saw him get out his acolyte squads from rhinos and everything leveled at the libby's squad, killing them all. He then plinked off a model from my orange squad and charged in his interceptors. He got off hammerhand, but only killed 2. I killed 3 back, but his hammer passed his 1 fearless save (failed morale, but I caught him).

Turn 3 saw the real carnage start. My opponent forgot to warpquake last turn, so Dante and crew came in behind the front line of dreads as did a landspeeder. My remaining full squad of SG move towards the acolytes that had left their rhinos last turn. That was it for my movement. In shooting dev missile launcher took out the black dread (the only nonvenerable in the front line). Dante's squad took out the venerable to the left of the black dread and the other dev took an arm off of the far left venerable in the front line. The scouts were able to plink away a meltagunner from the brown acolyte squad in the tree, but they passed all relevant tests. My green squad of SG assaulted the front two acolyte squads amd wiped them out. The orange squad wiped out the hammer with no losses of it's own and consolidated back towards my objective. At this point it is also important to note that only one of the front rhinos was mobile as the other had immobilized itself on terrain. That would change soon.

When he immobilized the final rhino trying to get the brown squad away. With his front line in tatters my opponent knew he had to convert big in order to win. The interceptors moved up to the hill by Dante's squad. A dread knocked my speeder out of the air and the brown acolytes melta-ed a Sanguinary Guard while everything else focused on Dante's but did surprisingly little damage. My armor saves were on fire. 3+/FNP is rock hard. In desperation, the interceptors assaulted into Dante's squad, but the Lord of the Host wiped out all 5 Grey Knights before they could even strike. His crew consolidated forwards toward Coteaz and his two dreads.

Turn 4 was where I would wrap it up. Dante and crew moved forward to try and pop Coteaz's ride and a dread. My last speeder came in to shoot at the other dread. My larger SG squad moved towards the ordo malleus inquisitor and his retinue while the orange squad moved back toward my objective. My foot priest moved to cast his FNP bubble on them to make sure that they survived the game. In shooting, I was able to shake one ven dread and immobilize another where it couldn't really see anything. Dante's squad failed to pop the right dread and would have to do it the old fashioned way, with a powerfist. My green SG squad knocked out 2 servitors and prepared to assault in and butcher the inquisitor and his remaining servitor when my opponent called it.

In the end, I held my own objective and contested his objective with the possibility of claiming both by the end of the game. My opponent scaled his army down from 2,500pt. and admitted that it did not scale down well. He was running a henchman heavy build and having to scale it down really hurt the army. The best thing he did was to keep the 6 dreads, but otherwise, having troop choices in light tanks with only 3 models in them really hurt my opponent. Again, I played a list that is far from optimal. I have found this to be a trend and find it funny at how people think netlists are taking over. I haven't seen a netlist on Vassal yet.

I believe I am beginning to get the Sanguinary Guard. Adding the chapter banner to a SG squad really helps with controlling infantry units. The extra attack per model means this unit is a real chainsaw when it comes to fighting infantry, even large squads, like Ork boyz mobs. Though they don't have a fist, the libby tries to accommodate by using his S10 sword when necessary. Otherwise, I think the army has a lot of good strengths and is starting to really click with me.

About Me

I am a hobbyist, painter, player. I play Warhammer Fantasy Battles, 40k, and Warmachine. I currently play Space Wolves and Codex Marines in 40k, Dark Elves in Fantasy, and Menoth in Warmachine. I love to talk tactics and learn how to improve my game.